Aftermath

Then we brought her home.

"They" tell you this will be the hard part, that you won't sleep, that everything will take longer, et cetera, et cetera, but they can't really tell you how it is. This is one of the great mysteries of life which you just don't know about until you're in it, laying siege. There's a great number of mysteries here to contemplate, perhaps at 3 am in the morning when all good babies should be asleep but clearly aren't, not the least of which are:

1) Why aren't you asleep?
Are you part werewolf, perhaps? What is so bad right at this moment that wasn't so bad while the sun was shining? And why are you so angelic when we have company? Should we start having people over all the time just so we can get some rest? Maybe you are trying to get your hermit parents to live a little. That's generous of you.

2) Why do we find the word poopy suddenly so endearing?
You'd think that changing a diaper would be a horrid nasty task but, given that in order to know that our child is not being starved to death we have to record at least 3 dirty diapers in a 24 hour period, each diaper inspection is like opening a tiny smelly present. When the desired result is encountered a joyous cry arises from the nursery: "All right! Poopy!" And all is well in the household.

3) Why can't I remember any nursery songs except Rock-a-Bye Baby?
Which is just a really negative song to sing to a baby, threatening to put them in a tree for one thing, and insinuating that tree will not hold them for very long. Plus I can never remember when the bough is supposed to break. Before the baby is in the tree? After baby falls? Anyway, we've made do instead with songs like "The Sydney is Sleepy Song" (not always a hit) or the "Chewin' on the Sydney Hands" (aka Sydney is Hungry) song, which are sung off key and sometimes with different tunes altogether, depending on the time of day.

4) Why is our phone number suddenly the most popular thing to dial?
I was never much of a phone person, but now I loathe the thing. Fortunately we have caller id, so if it is someone we don't really need to talk to, we can just let the answering machine get it. Unfortunately, these particular people often get miffed that we didn't call them back right away, even though they are distant acquaintances who are lucky to get a birth announcement, let alone a phone call. One guy has called so many times that my husband jokingly asked me if I was sure the baby was his.

Aside from these mysteries, much of the day has become predictable; feed, sleep, diaper, cry, cry cry, sleep, feed cry. Sometimes we manage to get out of the house for a whole twenty minutes to enjoy the spring air. We hear it's not always like this, so we're waiting, as patiently as we can, for the phase to pass into something more spaced out, calm, and manageable. Eventually we'll have to face the real world again, and it would be nice if the real world didn't seem so surreal in the meantime.